


The Butterfly Effect

by Kali_Blue



Category: INSIDE (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Experimentation, Horror, Monsters, Open to Interpretation, Post-Canon, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 19:05:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11168169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kali_Blue/pseuds/Kali_Blue
Summary: After the events of Inside, an amorphous monster makes a determination that it is ready to move on.





	The Butterfly Effect

The sun fades over a motionless, amorphous blob.  For days it had been resting on the beach, recovering from its ordeal, and finally made a determination that it was ready.

The creature is grotesque.  From a distance, it appears as a tangle of skin and limbs. Human heads flop about the mass with no discernible features. Dozens of arms and legs dangle haphazardly across its shapeless form.  

It is a Frankenstein monster. A man-made creation made to consume and devour. But it also has a semblance of sentience, and it knows it was human once. A great many.

It’s when the sun sets and the moon emerges that, after days of immobility, the creature decides it needs to move. It pulls itself over sand with a singular purpose in mind.  It moans and groans, stifled screams of terror and whimpers of agony, and it moves into the water as the tide rolls in. The noises are instantly stifled.

It lets the tide take it away. Colourful schools of fish scatter in its wake, instinctively aware they will be devoured.

It’s at midnight, in the glow of moonlight, that something strange happens. Skin hardens across the creatures mass, spreads like algae across glass. Forms into an outer casing. Hours pass, and it begins to shake itself free of arms and limbs and skin. They fall to the sea bottom like discarded pieces of rubbish.

Tiny cracks begin to appear across what remains of the shell. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, like cracks in ice. Until the casing finally splits, and begins to open. It sinks to the bottom with the rest of debris.

It’s from the debris that a child emerges.

A boy, curled in a fetal position, rises to the surface of the water.  Long dark hair floats around the child’s round face. His skin is tinged with a blue-grey sheen, and he is naked as the day he was born.

When the child’s eyes open, they are a bright azure. The colour of forget-me-nots. The newborn uncurls and, for a time, allows himself to be taken by the sea currents. A slight smile plays at the corners of his mouth. A joyful trill echoes through the water.

Agile as a mermaid, the boy spins around, away from land, and disappears into dark blue sea.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote a bit of an experimental ending for the game Inside. Like many players, I was left both baffled and emotionally stunned by the ending after playing it. Even though I had no idea what the hell was happening with its story.


End file.
